Glanbia in €50m takeover of US firm

Glanbia has strengthened its US nutritional and ingredients business with the €50m acquisition of Aseptic Solutions Inc (ASI) in Corona, California.

A manufacturer and co-packer of nutritional and dietary beverages including vitamin shots, protein shakes and 100% natural fruit juices, Aseptic Solutions is viewed as a complementary acquisition which enhances Glanbia’s service offering to its American clients.

Glanbia funded this purchase through its existing banking facilities.

In a market briefing issued yesterday, Davy Stockbrokers placed an “outperform” rating on Glanbia’s share price, which rose by almost 1% to €6.15 on the Irish Stock Exchange.

Davy food analyst John O’Reilly said: “The acquisition of ASI brings aseptic processing (a process by which the sterility of a food or pharmaceutical is maintained in packaging) capability to the group.

“Heretofore, it outsourced this requirement. Having this capability in-house will enable Glanbia to extend its beverage nutritional offerings and offer more consumer packaged opportunity for its whey protein derivatives.”

Glanbia’s most recent prior US swoop was the €108m acquisition in Jan 2011 of sports nutrition firm BNS, in Boca Raton, Florida.

BNS’s 140 staff were retained within the group, as are ASI’s 175 staff.

A spokesperson for Glanbia said: “ASI is a discreet entity, operating in an area in which we are already active. It offers services which we would have contracted before, so bringing it into the group makes that function more efficient.”

Meanwhile, Glanbia has also confirmed that it will hold its current June milk price of 28.5 cent per litre during July.

Farmer groups have welcomed this move. Irish Farmers’ Association president John Bryan has called upon other dairy processors to follow Glanbia’s example and make similar announcements regarding their July milk prices.